The Brotherhood is a group on campus that supports underrepresented male students of color, including African-Americans and Hispanics, on campus. The group meets several times a term. During the meetings, the student mentors discuss topics including personal identity and student-faculty relationships.
In its most recent meeting last Sunday, the members discussed identity, the importance of open communication among the students and faculty and the need to find a trusted adult on campus, among other topics.
The Brotherhood was founded last year by a few upperclassmen who were outspoken about racial issues, according to Elijah Aladin ’15, a mentor in the program. He stressed that the group is for all males of color, not only African-Americans.
The group strives to help these new students ease into Andover’s culture and discover their own identities in the process, according to Aladin.
Aladin highlighted the value of having male faculty members of color present at the meetings as role models for incoming students.
“One of the defining things for me that really had me being held accountable and being involved with the issues surrounding race and mentorship and things of that nature was having [Damany Fisher, Instructor in History,] as a role model and being able to talk to him,” said Aladin.
Aladin added that, unlike African-Latino-American Mentoring Program (AMP), the Brotherhood emphasizes the group’s support as a whole, rather than focusing on the single interaction between a mentor-mentee pair.
“It’s to show that not only are we connected one-on-one, but we are all here to support everyone. We are all here because we identify with similar things,” he said.
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Read about the other support groups at Andover covered in this week’s issue, and stay tuned for an exploration of religious affinity groups next week.
– [Outliers Book Club](http://www.phillipian.net/articles/2014/10/17/outliers-book-club)
– [AMP Mentoring](http://www.phillipian.net/articles/2014/10/17/amp-mentoring)
– [MOSAIC Mentoring](http://www.phillipian.net/articles/2014/10/17/mosaic-mentoring)
– [Post-Graduate Support Program](http://www.phillipian.net/articles/2014/10/17/post-graduate-support-program)
– [New Upper Support Program](http://www.phillipian.net/articles/2014/10/17/new-upper-support-program)
– [The Sisterhood](http://www.phillipian.net/articles/2014/10/17/sisterhood)
– [GLP Mentoring Program](http://www.phillipian.net/articles/2014/10/17/glp-mentoring-program)
